Princeton University researcher Peter Singer is being criticized for promoting euthanasia for adults and even sick newborns as he touts his new book during a tour of the United States, Great Britain -Britain and Australia.
Singer, 76, one of the world’s foremost living philosophers and animal rights activist, stoked fury with his recent vocal support for doctor-assisted killings, including for infants born with terminal illnesses .
Critics called Singer’s comments “dangerous eugenics”, accusing the Australian of undermining the terminally ill and disabled by suggesting they were better off dead.
The controversy comes as Canada’s liberal euthanasia system now sees 10,000 people end their lives each year, and more US states are considering expanding access to suicide drugs.
“Singer has a eugenics philosophy and his writings are dangerous,” Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, a campaign group, told DailyMail.com.
Princeton University researcher Peter Singer, the father of the modern animal rights movement, now says euthanasia should be available for sick newborns
Disability rights activists say Singer’s support of assisted suicides devalues their lives
“He justifies that some lives are undeserving of life, and his philosophy undermines the concept of human equality by justifying the killing of people who lack an indefinite level of cognitive ability.”
Schadenberg urged people to boycott the book tour.
Matt Vallière, director of the Patients Rights Action Fund, criticized Singer’s “eugenic and utilitarian worldview” for suggesting that “some lives are not worth living, namely people with significant disability “.
It “creates a caste of disposable people”, he told DailyMail.com.
Matt Vallière Says Singer’s Ideas Are Creating a “Disposable People Caste”
Singer is halfway through a lecture tour of the US, Britain and Australia, promoting her new book Animal Liberation Now – a reboot of her 1975 classic that has inspired generations of people to adopt veganism.
Talk to VoiceSinger addressed the expansion of factory farming, the growing popularity of animal activism and plant-based diets, and his belief that humans are not superior to other species.
He also doubled down on controversial views that the terminally ill, those with limited ‘cognitive abilities’ or ‘severe intellectual disability that could not be treated’ should be allowed to end their lives with the help from a doctor.
Even more controversially, the bioethicist said the parents of a newborn with a “very serious disability” should be able to ask doctors to give the child a lethal injection.
“Parents should always be able to say, ‘We think it’s better for the child not to live’, and doctors should be able to make sure that happens, give the child medicine so that ‘he dies without suffering,’ says the singer.
His comments sparked outrage from rights activists, who say legalizing euthanasia devalues the lives of people with disabilities and prompts doctors to suggest the procedure to those who wouldn’t otherwise consider it.
Calling for lethal injections for sick newborns is even more moving.
Social media users called the influential philosopher a “radical eugenicist” and a “dumb”. The New York-based Jewish Life League, a campaign group, called Singer an “evil man.”
Meghan Schrader, 40, an autistic woman and a teacher at the University of Texas at Austin, compared Singer’s “euthanasia program” to the state-sanctioned killings of disabled people in Nazi Germany.
Singer, 76, says parents should be able to ask doctors to give sick infants lethal injections
Australian bioethicist teaches at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values
Schadenberg said the promotion of euthanasia for newborns is “dangerous” as Canadian officials debate whether to expand access to physician-assisted dying, as is known, to include mentally ill and children.
Euthanasia is legal in seven countries – Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain – as well as in several states in Australia. It is only available for children in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, calls Singer’s ideas ‘dangerous’
Other jurisdictions, including a growing number of US states, allow physician-assisted suicide – in which patients take the drug themselves, usually crushing and drinking a lethal dose of pills prescribed by a doctor.
In Canada, both options are called MAID, although more than 99.9% of these procedures are performed by a doctor. There were more than 10,000 such deaths in 2021, an increase of around a third from the previous year.
Canada’s road to allowing euthanasia began in 2015, when its highest court ruled that the ban on assisted suicide robs people of their dignity and autonomy. He gave national leaders a year to draft legislation.
The resulting 2016 law legalized both euthanasia and assisted suicide for people aged 18 and over, provided they met certain conditions: they had to have a condition, illness or disability serious and advanced that caused suffering and their death was imminent.
The law was later amended to allow people who are not terminally ill to choose death, greatly expanding the number of eligible people.
Critics say the change removed a key safeguard aimed at protecting people with potentially decades of life remaining.
Today, any adult with a serious illness, disease or disability can request assistance in dying.
